Latimer: If I Win, I’ll Join The Democratic Conference

Assemblyman George Latimer, a Rye Democrat who launched a bid for the state Senate earlier this week, has no interest in joining the upper chamber’s breakaway Democratic caucus, he said in a phone interview this week.

Latimer, who’s looking to succeed retiring Sen. Suzi Oppenheimer of Mamaroneck, said he’s committed to joining the Senate’s main Democratic caucus if he were to win at the ballot box in November.

Last year, four Democrats broke away from the main caucus to form the Independent Democratic Conference. That includes two senators who represent parts of the lower Hudson Valley—Sens. Jeff Klein, D-Bronx, and David Carlucci, D-Clarkstown, Rockland County.

“I intend to be a member of the Democratic conference,” Latimer said. “My hope would be at the leadership level of the conference, the conference and the IDC people will sit down and say, ‘Look, we’ve got some difficulties between us, but we have more in common if we work together.’”

Latimer said he hopes the differences between the main caucus and the breakaway set of Democrats could be resolved next year, a sentiment several members of the main conference have conveyed.

“Whatever happened in this session happened in this session, and I would hope—and it’s a hope—that this can get resolved in the next one,” Latimer said.